Page 31 of The Duke
She shivered involuntarily. From the style of painting and the clothes, she guessed this was the duke’s predecessor.That woman, Royce had called her, whom Celine had glimpsed in the altercation between the cousins today. She couldn’t help recalling what she knew in relation to this aunt; it was simply how her mind worked. A shared childhood; a fabricated treason; a fire.
She forced herself to put away the disturbing picture her mind made of these events—it was none of her business—and moved on to the next portrait. She stopped breathing.
The duke had been captured by an artist of prodigious skill. Her eyes were just as unnerving as her aunt’s, but without the mature restraint. Something of the force she exerted on the world had been captured, and her otherworldly quality as well. How the artist had achieved the shade of the duke’s eyes, she didn’t know.
Celine felt pinned in place. Naked and quivering.
The duke stared down at her with an unholy light in her eyes.
She wrenched herself away and walked with unbecoming haste out of the gallery. She had lost her taste for wandering the house—a ghost would need nerves of steel to keep company with the ghosts that haunted Kate Howard—and turned back to her room. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard a sudden, muffled shout. She froze, listening. Had she imagined it? She had certainly scared herself badly enough.
But no, it came again. This time it was sustained, hair-raising, just on the edge of hearing. Heart hammering, she ran up the stairs. She ran towards the sound rather than away, with the same instinct that would send her towards anything in that amount of pain.
It was coming from the opposite end of the hall to her own rooms. From the duke’s rooms.
What would she find? What washappening? The duke was yelling a word over and over—a name. Celine could nearly make it out.
A door opened in the hall, bringing her up short, and the valet Miss Everett stepped out wearing a sleeping cap, slippers, and a nightshirt that fell from her large stomach. Her eyes had dark smudges under them, illuminated in a ghastly fashion by the candle she held.
“It’s a nightmare,” Miss Everett said. “She has them sometimes.”
The valet’s voice discouraged further enquiry, but Celine said, “Shouldn’t someone go to her?” The anguished voice cried out still.
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” the valet said, “except allow her privacy.”
“But surely—”
“No. We have tried.” The words were final, but Miss Everett’s eyes welled with compassion. She moved back into her room and started to close the door, so that was to be that. But, no, she had only been taking her wrapper from the back of the door, and presently, she joined Celine in the hallway. “Come with me, if you please.”
Instead of towards the duke, where Celine still felt urgently she ought to go, the valet led her away and down a back stair. They came eventually to the kitchen, where the duke’s cries could no longer be heard. It was a large room made of stone, with the best of everything. A small head rose in silhouette before the fire—the kitchen boy, roused by their entry. Miss Everett gave him something from the pantry, and he scampered out of the room to enjoy it elsewhere. Celine sat at the huge wooden workbench, and soon Miss Everett joined her.
Gratefully, Celine put her hands around the cup of warm chocolate the valet had made for her. When she drank, she felt it slide down her throat and chest, warming her through. Her uneasyfeelings settled. The kitchen was comfortable, the company unexpectedly easy.
“Delicious, Miss Everett, thank you. My face must have looked awful up there. You knew what I needed before I did.”
Miss Everett smiled. “Call me Margot,” she said informally.
Celine’s hands stilled, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say. To most of the duke’s servants she must seem to be what she claimed. But Miss Everett’s was the professional eye that had assessed her and then played dress-up with her to make her look the part. “Why are you being so kind?”
Margot’s eyes fluttered down, and when she looked back up, they were very soft and a little sad. “My mother was like you,” Margot said. “She grew up on a farm outside Vichèi. An Englishman brought her here, then abandoned her. She sewed and embroidered to feed herself and me. Before she died, she had established a small dress shop in Soho. It was nothing grand, but I always thought it a most admirable achievement.”
Celine didn’t entirely like the comparison, but she was touched by the sympathy Margot had for her.
“Was it from her you learned the skills you would need to become a valet?”
“Yes.” The valet’s polished, professional mien cracked. She smiled widely, showing teeth that were straight at the front but turned a sharp corner at each of her incisors. “She used to say I was born with a needle in my hand, and no wonder birthing me hurt so much.”
Celine couldn’t help smiling as well. “You are peerless in your field. The duke’s appearance is perfect in every detail.”
Margot took a sip of chocolate and raised her fine brows over the rim, waiting for the question that was inevitably going to follow this change in topic.
Celine’s heart began to beat powerfully in her chest. “How long have you worked for the duke?”
“Nearly eleven years.”
“You must have been very young when you started,” she said, surprised. She had thought the valet her own age.
“Eighteen. I happened to be visiting a school friend in Oxford when I encountered the duke, who happened to be in need of a number of stitches.”
